How to be in Silence?

Too often, the mind will wander with past memories and future projections, even if we are not doing anything, there will be voices from the mind. We might be worrying about upcoming challenges, be it personal or work.

How to swooosh the voice in the mind?

After watching and learning from articles, videos of teachers who guide us to be in present moment, I understand intellectually the importance of being here and now. But, it is after practising Vipassana meditation, I learned this Anapana breathing technique to quiet the mind by focus on the breath and sensations of the body.

One practical way we all can learn is to focus on our natural breath, observe when we breath in, which nostrils it is coming in or both nostrils. When we breath out, which nostrils does it pass through.

This is the basic, to bring back the mind to present moment. This conditioned mind has been programmed to focus on the past and future. Now, with our natural breath, it could focus in this moment that we are breathing.

#Tips:

If the mind is still wandering, take 2 deeper breath to make it easier to observe and then back to natural breath. Notice if its shallow or deep.

If it is hard to focus for some time, stop breathing for 20 seconds, which the mind would stay in present moment, then observe the breath.

Something to note of, when the mind is not focus, we might be feeling agitated and demotivating to keep on. Let’s start from baby steps. Observe your natural breath for 1 minute, but do your best not to count. Then, we could observe for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, even up to 1 hour.

When you are able to observe longer than 1 minute, observe the sensations on the nose. There might be wind so might felt cooling, or it could be sweaty. Observe the sensations near the nose (above the lips) helps the mind to be sharper.

This is the basic practise in silencing the mind, a method called – Ananpana breathing technique. It has been helping me to calm and concentrate before Vipassana meditation.

Hope it helps, because we learn the most by practising it. Find a quiet space and experience it yourself. May you be happy.